


My Baby He Wrote Me a Letter

by socknonny



Series: The Spaces In Between [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Coming Out, Introspection, Letters, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 11:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14976422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Steve finds hidden messages taped beneath his school desk. Soon, he's baring his soul to a stranger.





	My Baby He Wrote Me a Letter

**Author's Note:**

> I've labelled this the start of a series because it's kind of a prelude more than anything, and I'd like to come back to this verse. 
> 
> (Also please note there is one use of the f-slur)

Steve stretched out his legs beneath the desk and tried as hard as he could not to fall asleep. Trig was dragging on and on, which was nothing new… but ever since the events of November, his tolerance for school had gone out the window. It just seemed so pointless. He’d muddled his way through classes with even less enthusiasm than normal, barely keeping afloat.

And now graduation was approaching. The weather was already heating up, the air stifling and stagnant in the classroom. It wasn’t doing wonders for Steve’s vow to stay awake.

He sunk lower in his seat and jiggled his legs; anything to keep from drifting off. Sleep wasn’t kind to him these days, and while his reputation might have mellowed into something approaching “liked”, if not “popular” any more, he somehow doubted that screaming his head off in the middle of class was going to be favourable toward his social status.

His knee brushed against the underside of the desk, and the sound of crinkling paper reached his ears. Frowning, he slid his fingers under the desk until they met a folded sheet of paper stuck beneath the wood. His heartrate immediately began picking up for reasons he couldn’t identify. Was it a secret message? Was it danger? Both possibilities seemed forever around the corner these days, and Steve was so far on edge he didn’t know what level ground felt like anymore.

With slightly trembling hands, he pulled the note out and read it.

_Made you look._

He read it and read it again before the beginnings of a smile began to creep up his face. It was just a dumb note. Just a dumb note written by a dumb teenager with impossibly neat handwriting. For some reason, that realization felt more bizarre to Steve than if it had been a secret missive from a government corporation.

A surge of warmth rose in Steve’s chest, and he grabbed his pen to write back. He paused for a while, trying to think of something smart and witty. But he wasn’t particularly smart and witty, and in the end all he could think to write was the first thing he’d thought when he’d read the note.

_Dickhead._

He stuck it back under the desk and tried to not to think about what exactly it was stuck to.

Somehow, the rest of the lesson didn’t seem so bad. Even the rest of the day seemed lighter. He thought about joining Nancy and Jonathon at lunch, but when he tried to walk over to the table his legs wouldn’t move. In the end, he did what he always did these days and left the cafeteria to eat in his car.

Across the parking lot, he saw Billy Hargrove doing the same thing. Billy’s eyes met his, and he stuck his finger up at Steve and grinned. Not much had changed there. Steve ignored both the finger and the rising tide of _something_ that Billy always seemed to bring out in him. It was a restlessness, an unease, a need to do or be or have something that he couldn’t work out. It was easier to just squash it down.

He lay down on the hood of his car, head propped against the cool glass of the windscreen, and watched the clouds fly overhead. Without the chaos of the school around him, he could almost pretend he was anywhere. And yet, he still felt like he was torn in two. One part of him drifted with the clouds, losing himself in the calmness of their gentle flight. The other part of him twitched, tapped, moved—eager to leave but with no idea where to go.

A shadow fell across his face, and the twitching part sat bolt upright, ready to fight. But it was only Billy, and while he was still a dick, he hadn’t threatened any of them since that night.

“What do you want?” Steve asked, hopping off the hood so that they were standing face to face.

Billy jerked his head toward the pack of cigarettes in Steve’s front pocket. “I’m out of smokes.”

“Is there a question in there, Hargrove?”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “Can I bum one, asshole?”

So maybe some things had changed. Like the way they occasionally shared a smoke out the back of the gymnasium. And how Steve had maybe, sort of, smoked Billy’s last cigarette that morning, before Steve could make it to the store. And how Billy hadn’t even minded when he’d reached into his pack and found it empty—had just plucked the cigarette from Steve’s lips, taken a drag, and handed it back.

The first time Billy had offered Steve a cigarette had been an apology; now, Steve didn’t know what it was. He handed Billy the pack and watched him light up, long fingers caressing the lighter almost indecently.

“Thanks, Harrington.”

Billy threw him the pack, chuckling as Steve scrambled to catch it. Steve’s cheeks heated; he wasn’t normally so uncoordinated, but he’d been caught unawares in the middle of imagining impossible things about those fingers.

Then, Billy left. He checked Steve with his shoulder as he walked past, making him stumble, but it was different than it would have been months ago—somehow friendly, in whatever fucked up way Billy Hargrove did ‘friendly’.

“Dickhead,” Steve called after him.

That was different too. All in all, most things were different since November, as much as they’d also stayed the same. Steve wasn’t sure where that left him, or how something could be two things at once, but he was trying to just roll with it. Trying to find meaning in spaces where, increasingly, no meaning could be found.

It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

*

Steve didn’t expect there to be a note waiting for him the next Trig class, but he’d barely even sat down before his hands were already searching, just in case. When they found the tiny square of paper taped in the corner of the desk—a different place to last time—he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.

He waited until the teacher wasn’t looking and then opened it up. Instantly, he had to clamp his hand over his mouth to stop from laughing. The teacher looked back at the strangled noise he made, and he managed to pass it off as a cough.

Ignoring the curious glances of the other students, he waited until the coast was clear and then looked back down at the note. It was a crude drawing of a person with a giant, throbbing penis on their head. So, that probably ruled out the option that his pen pal was a girl, then. No girls he knew drew dicks like that. It had a vein and everything.

He started to scrawl a response and then paused. Something in him grew bold. The restless, creeping feeling beneath his skin was growing, filling him with the urge to do something _different._ He didn’t know who this person was, and they didn’t know Steve. Steve could become something new. Something truer than he’d had the courage to be before.

He tore a new piece of paper from his notebook and tucked the drawing into his pocket. In blue ink, to an unknown boy in his school, he wrote: _If this is what counts as flirting for you, you should know that’s a little small for my tastes._

The whole rest of the lesson, he thought about the square of paper taped to the bottom of the desk. He had over forty minutes to remove it, to tear it into tiny pieces and pretend it never existed. He didn’t. Something in him felt lighter. That small action had somehow taken a piece of him that he pretended didn’t exist and brought it into the light—even if the light was small and mostly hidden.

School passed in a blur as he waited for his next Trig lesson. He was sure there would be a note this time. Something in him just knew.

Sure enough, it was waiting.

_Strange. I thought you were a dude._

Steve read the words five different times in five different ways, searching for an inflection that couldn’t be found in writing. The new part of him—more daring and more… _demanding_ than any other part—held the pen and wrote: _I am._

For a full week, there was no reply. Steve stopped looking. It was no surprise he’d scared the guy off; what highschool boy wouldn’t run screaming in the other direction? Steve had known about his bisexuality for a long time, and for just as long he’d known the cost of wearing it openly. Still he didn’t regret it. He didn’t feel unsafe; there were at least five other maths classes with five other people sitting here who could have written the note, and that was if his pen pal bothered to look.

Steve doubted he would. And since Steve had kept the other notes, all the guy had to out him with were two ambiguous messages that ultimately meant nothing.

So, it was something of a surprise when he jiggled his knee beneath the desk and felt something drop loose, onto the ground. He bent down to pick it up before anyone else could see, and his eyes widened at the sight of what was practically a small essay written on a slip of white paper.

_Pretty bold of you, amigo. I gotta admit—you’ve got balls. See, that’s something my dad doesn’t get. He thinks fags are pussies. Thinks we’re not men—something less than men. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think who we fuck has much to do with who we are. But, at the same time, it_ is _who I am. It has a whole lot to do with who I am. I never realized that until just now. Guess I owe you thanks for making me say it out loud._

After several long minutes, Steve realized he was staring at the paper with his mouth open. All he kept seeing was the “we” that the stranger kept repeating. Who _we_ fuck. Who _we_ are. For the first time, Steve didn’t feel quite so alone.

Carefully, making sure no one was watching, he tore out a bit of paper and wrote a response.

_I think you’re inside my head, man. It’s who you are, and it also isn’t. That’s already too much of a head-fuck for me, but at the same time… I know what you mean. I really know what you mean. I wish it made sense, but I guess I’ll just have to make do with knowing I’m not the only one. Thanks for making me say it too._

When he checked back the next day, the note was gone. Steve imagined his mysterious correspondent reading his letter, tucking it deep into his pocket, maybe checking its presence with careful fingers every few minutes. There was no note in response, but somehow that image filled Steve with warmth all the same.

The gentle sensation lasted all day, making him feel so light and happy he kept forgetting, just for a second or two each time, that the last year had happened.

It was still there when he reached his car that afternoon, and even the sight of Billy Hargrove listening to music at obnoxious volumes wasn’t enough to destroy it. Their eyes met, and for a moment Steve saw something mirrored there, something carefree that he’d never seen in Billy’s face before.

He wondered what had put Billy in such a good mood, but then he remembered the note again and the thought disappeared from his mind.

*

He waited a week, and then he wrote another note. It was the first time he’d initiated any of their strange correspondence, and his hands were shaking a little as he did. He didn’t know why it meant so much to him, but he couldn’t deny it. He’d never had anyone to talk to about this stuff before. And while part of him insisted to keep the conversation light, talk about anything but this, he knew that if he did it would be a lie. His desperation for answers would leak between every word. So why not just cut right to it?

_How soon did you know?_

He thought about skipping the next few lessons, looking in the window and counting out the possibilities for who his correspondent might be. But it felt… wrong. Like if he did that, it would be the kind of betrayal you didn’t come back from. Steve had already revealed more of himself than ever before, and his heart felt lighter for it. He never would have been able to do that if it weren’t for their mutual anonymity.

The answer came the next day.

_Jesus. You don’t ease a man in, do you? I knew the first time I looked at James Dean and realized I didn’t just want to be_ like _him, you know what I’m saying, amigo? What about you? When did you know?_

God, so his anonymous pen pal was a bad boy. Or at least he wanted to be. Steve shifted in his chair, trying to resolve the immediate problem that little tidbit had brought up. After a moment, he felt composed enough to respond.

_Since as long as I can remember. No one knows, which means it’s easy to keep hidden. But we hide it to stay safe, right? Hiding doesn’t feel safe. It feels like I’m dead._

He didn’t feel good after writing that, though he did feel different. It was similar to the lightness he was becoming accustomed to after each note he wrote, but it came with an anger, a resentment that didn’t yet have words. It twisted inside his chest, setting his teeth on edge.

When he ran into Billy that afternoon, he knew it was written all over his face. Billy did a double take, slowing down his stride and coming to a cautious halt in front of him.

“I was gonna bum a smoke,” he said, voice low and curious. “But you look like you might deck me if I get too close.” He grinned suddenly, a little feral. “You wanna go, pretty boy?”

Steve rolled his eyes and threw Billy the pack. “No, Hargrove, I don’t want to _go._  I’m just in a bad mood.”

“Only one solution for that,” Billy said, smirking around a cigarette.

“Fighting, I take it?” Steve asked, leaning back against the brick wall of the gym.

“Nah. Sex.”

Steve choked when Billy’s eyes met his, a hint of something wicked in them for a split second before they returned to normal.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass,” he managed to spit out, relieved to hear only sarcasm in his voice instead of nerves.

Billy barked out a laugh, eyebrows shooting up in surprise before he recovered. “Your loss.” Something on the ground caught his eye, and he leaned down to pick up the small bit of paper and hand it back to Steve. “You dropped this.”

As he passed it over, he froze, eyes wide as he stared at the note. For a second, Steve’s heart stopped. Then, he realized this was an old jacket and it was only the note with the crude drawing. The one from way back when this thing had started.

“What the fuck?” Billy breathed, and there was something in his voice, something Steve couldn’t read.

He supposed the note was pretty dumb. He snatched it back and shoved it in his pocket. “Just some stupid picture the kids drew,” he said with a shrug.

Billy stared at him, his gaze lingering too long, but before Steve could say something, he straightened up.

“S’that right?” He blew a puff of smoke between them. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Guess you will.”

Steve watched him walk away, eyes dropping to Billy’s tight ass for just a few seconds, no more. It was a spectacular ass, and he was only human.

He wondered what the fuck had just happened, but he was still feeling all churned up and wrung out, and he didn’t have the energy to care about anything else except the note he’d sent and the truth he’d acknowledged for the first time out loud.

He enjoyed dating girls. Probably had a decent chance of finding one he wanted to marry. He could pass as straight if he wanted, and god knows that was the safe option.

But what good was safety if he had to kill a part of himself to have it?  

*

He almost didn’t read the next note. He waited until the end of the lesson, fingers ghosting back and forth across the paper as he made the decision to keep this thing, whatever it was, going. Finally, he realized he couldn’t walk away from it if he tried, and he peeled open the note with shaking fingers.

_What if you didn’t have to hide? At least from one person. At least from me._

He stared at it for a long, long time. The voice of the teacher faded into the background, and all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat thudding in his chest. The boy wanted to meet. He wanted to make this thing real, to be friends—or something.

Did Steve want that? Did he want to take the first step toward the open?

He was already scrawling a response before his brain had caught up. The answer thrummed beneath his skin, begging to come out—had been begging for a long time.  

_I’m in if you are._

For the rest of the day, every noise set Steve on edge. He kept feeling like he’d made a mistake, even though he knew he still hadn’t reached the point of no return. Perhaps it was simply because he knew he wasn’t going to back out, no matter what the anonymous boy said or did. The part of him that wanted this was too strong, had waited too long.  

When the final bell rang, Steve cut back through the corridor and into the classroom. He didn’t know if there would already be a note waiting for him, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight without at least checking.

The second his fingers slid beneath the smooth wood, they found paper.

_I’ll be smoking on the bleachers after school._

Steve’s heart leapt in his chest, sending goosebumps shivering across his skin. Tomorrow after school—because the guy wouldn’t expect Steve to have checked today. Still, he found himself taking the long way out to the parking lot, eyes scanning the bleachers as if he might be able to see into the future.

The only guy there was Billy Hargrove, chatting up a senior with a short skirt. He didn’t see Steve looking, too intent on the girl in front of him, cigarette dangling from his lips.

For a single, blinding moment, Steve wondered what it would be like if _Billy_ had been the one to write the notes. He imagined those hands roaming his skin, lighting fires between them. He imagined grabbing Billy by the back of the neck and pulling him into a searing kiss.

He imagined it all, and then he shoved it aside, because if there was anyone in this school who was completely fucking straight, it was Billy Hargrove.

*

The day crawled by at a snail’s pace, and for some reason, he seemed to have adopted an extra shadow.

Everywhere Steve went, Billy Hargrove wasn’t far behind, throwing friendly insults, jostling him, and basically getting on every last nerve he had.

“What is your problem?” He finally spat, spinning around and shoving Billy back. “You’re even more annoying than usual today.”

Billy grinned—a huge, shit-eating grin. “Aw, Harrington, and here I thought you cared.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

For some reason, the grin grew wider. “Look,” Billy said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, despite the fact that they were in the middle of the bloody hallway. His hands twitched around the flame, and he seemed oddly nervous. “I just wanna say, you know—” he waved his hand in the air, his eyes sliding away, “—if you don’t want things to change, don’t go.”

Steve wrinkled his nose, wondering for a brief second if Billy had a concussion. “What?”

“If you don’t want things to change,” Billy said slowly, piercing blue eyes suddenly gazing straight into his once more, “don’t go.”

Smoke drifted between them, and suddenly Steve _knew._ He fucking knew. He saw the moment that Billy registered the shock on his face, and then Billy was gone.

The rest of the day passed in a haze. Steve got three detentions before lunchtime for being so spaced out he was either late or somehow disruptive, and he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

The guy was Billy. It was _Billy_.

That part had only taken him about thirty minutes to get over. Once he mentally pieced together the notes in his memory, it made a strange sort of sense. The bit he wasn’t getting was the part where Billy obviously knew it was Steve, and he didn’t back out. He still wanted to meet.

And he gave _Steve_ the option to run.

It didn’t… it didn’t fit. Nothing about any of this fitted with what he knew of Billy.

But then, it probably didn’t fit with what Billy knew of him, either. In the space of a few anonymous notes, they had both revealed sides of themselves they hadn’t known existed—that much was clear. It was the most exhilarating thing Steve had ever done, demodogs and demogorgons included. He didn’t want to give that up.

When the final bell rang, Steve did what he had always been going to do, what he was powerless to avoid.

The wind whipped through his hair as he crossed the field. He could see Billy lying down on one of the highest seats, tiny drifts of smoke rising above his mouth. He was practically unrecognisable from that angle.

Steve climbed the stairs at a run and then dropped onto the ground beside him. He leaned back so that their heads were together even though they weren’t facing each other. For a few minutes, neither of them broke the silence.

“James Dean, huh?” he said finally.

“What can I say?” Billy drawled. “I like pretty boys.”

Steve snorted. “You _are_ a pretty boy.”

“Why thank you, Harrington. That’s awfully kind of you to say.”

There was no trace of surprise in Billy’s voice, just a rigid tension that made Steve’s jaw clench with unease. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted Billy to open up to him like he had in their notes, but you could only invite that sort of vulnerability, you couldn’t force it.

“I told you not to come if you didn’t want things to change,” Billy said suddenly, his voice bitter with regret.

Steve turned to him then, ignoring the cold sting of the wind against his face. Billy’s eyes slanted to his, so very blue against the grey of the sky.

“You think I regret coming?”

“Don’t you?”

“Of course not.”

His eyes fell to Billy’s lips, just for a moment. He saw the way Billy’s breath hitched as he noticed the glance.

Somehow, that was all it took. The air didn’t change, but it no longer felt like ice—it felt fresh and crisp. The thudding in his chest began to slow. He had nothing to be afraid of; despite everything, he knew the person in front of him, perhaps more than anyone else. 

It didn’t totally make sense for Steve yet, but for the first time, he felt like maybe it could.

“Things’ll change, yeah,” he said slowly. “But not really. Who you fuck doesn’t make a difference to who you are, and it makes all the difference. Remember when you said that? It can be two things at once. I think the meaning is in the space between; I think that’s where it’s _supposed_ to be.”

Billy stared at him, eyes wider than normal and his lips slightly parted in surprise. It made his face look far younger and so very open.

He gave his head a little shake and sat up, propping his elbows on his knees. “You ever write song lyrics, Harrington? Because you’re sounding pretty fucking high right now, and Zeppelin wrote their best shit high. I’m just sayin’.”

Steve laughed, the sound carrying all around them on the wind. “So, what now?” he asked.

Billy shrugged. “Dunno.”

“You hungry?”

Billy turned to him, expression unreadable for a moment until he smiled. “Always.”

Steve stood and offered him a hand. “Then let’s get burgers or something.”

Billy regarded him before carefully taking the hand and pulling himself up. “This isn’t a date or some shit is it, Harrington?”

There was something in his voice. Steve didn’t know what it meant, but that was all right. Maybe one day he would.

“Nope,” he said. “Just friends, yeah?”

The rigid line of Billy’s shoulders relaxed, just a little. “Lead the way, amigo.”

They fell into step somewhere along the field, shoulders brushing lightly as they walked. It lit a fire beneath Steve’s skin, but it was only small—a tiny flame that was manageable for now. He could almost ignore it.

Everything felt right as it was, and for once, he didn’t feel alone at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to stress that while this line:
> 
> "But what good was safety if he had to kill a part of himself to have it?"
> 
> is an important part of Steve's development and motivation, safety is crucial. Please for the love of god don't put yourself at risk. 
> 
> Also, fun fact, when children's emotional needs aren't met to the extent that they are traumatized because of it (something I see as very plausible for both Billy and Steve), trauma therapy revolves around reuniting the parts of the self that have become disharmonious. Discovering all the new parts and bringing them together.


End file.
